On my way home from work last night, I just wasn’t in the mood for music and NPR was airing some really boring interview and since I caught only the middle, I couldn’t even figure out what they were talking about, so I flipped to the local men’s station. The station of last resort. It used to be amusing sometimes, but now it’s just repetitive. And there’s just so much a person can take of hearing man after man that you would never date ever in your entire life even if the fate the world depended on it call in and whine about how women are bitches and don’t respond to the good pickup lines.

But anyway, the hour’s topic was a little different because the host had asked women to call in to talk about the worst place a man has tried to pick them up. And yes, some of the places were pretty bad (her father’s funeral, at an STD clinic), but then a woman called in to talk about how the absolute worst time a guy has tried to pick her up is when she’s been driving her car.

I suppose I might find it irritating now if guys tried to pick me up while I was driving. I wouldn’t really know since guys don’t try to do that anymore. Dammit. Why don’t guys try to hit on me anymore when I drive? I drive a cute car. I choose to blame it on the city in which I live. Maybe hitting on people in cars is a California thing. Because when I lived there I got hit on all the time while driving. Also, I was many years younger, which could potentially be a factor. I’m choosing to believe it’s the state.

When I was in high school and college, I lived in California, and I drove a cute little sports car, and I almost never got irritated when guys hit on me while I was driving except maybe when they would hang completely out the car window and yell “woohoo”, because why in the world would they think that I would find that attractive?

Looking back, I suppose I was a little naive and reckless (possibly stupid is the word I’m looking for actually), but I met guys all the time on the road. One time, for instance, I pulled up to a light and noticed the guy next to me in an Opel GT. That was a sweet car. So, I tried to race him off the line and we eventually both pulled over and talked by the side of the road for a while until finally he said, “why are we standing here on the side of the road? Let’s go hang out at my house!” And rather than say, you are a strange man who I only just met on the side of the road, I followed him to his house and drank beer until 4am. (I know, but dude. An Opel GT looks like this.)

Another time, I was in stand still traffic in LA and I ever so slightly hit the bumper of the guy in front of me. Turns out he was cute, and we had to exchange numbers anyway… What choice did I have?

It may seem risky to meet a guy on the road, but how much more do you know about a guy you meet in a bar? Or a library for that matter? I’d say you know more about then on the road because you know what kind of driver they are. And if they drive a sexy Opel GT. And if they yell “woohoo” while hanging out the window. These are important things to know in any relationship.

I may have mentioned before, possibly just briefly, in passing, about how I am not particularly fond of being high in the air, hurdling through space, trapped in a metal tube. “Not particularly fond” in this context meaning that it freaks me the hell out and only copious amounts of Xanax and alcohol keep me from jumping up out of my seat and screaming, “we’re all going to die!” every time the plane jostles a little.

One way I cope with this, in addition to the Xanax, is to try to make everything leading up to the flight go as smoothly as possible. If just the tiniest thing goes wrong, panic sets in. It’s a sign. I shouldn’t get on the plane. I should go home right now and forget this whole “airline travel” thing ever existed. The stress of thinking about the plane and trying not to think about the plane are just about all I can handle, so even the smallest thing can put me right over the edge. Yes, OK, what I’m trying to say is that I can sort of be a bitch. Not on purpose or anything. It just happens.

My newest tactic is to be extra nice to everyone I pass, to embrace the zen and not get bothered by anything around me. This is not easy. On my flight out last week, I waited in the security line with everyone else, looking back every so often to make sure P. was still there, just in case something happened to me. (He was. He waited just outside the line and waved every time I looked back.)

A guy was standing in line behind me with his two children. His two young children. Impressionable children. He was apparently not all that satisified in the service he was receiving from airport security. Now, call me a coward, but I would never offer airport security my unsolicited opinion of their work unless I wanted to commend them on a job well done. Down the path of unsolicited opinion lies full cavity searches and small rooms with no windows. This guy seemed not so much worried about the possibility of a cavity search. “Jesus Christ. This is the worst airport in the country. You people are a waste of oxygen.” A fine example for his young children. And I think it was only luck and great restraint on the part of the security personnel that his children did not see him carted away and sent to the room with the bright light and the cigarettes. (I don’t know. Interrogation rooms in the movies always have cigarettes in them.)

I remained in my bubble of zen and attempted to ignore him and not infer that this meant my plane was doomed and would fall out of the sky as soon as it got to the highest possible cruising altitude over a sea of broken glass and hungry snakes.

The flight back was a little better. I was flying out of a small airport that rarely has much of a security line. But I made the unconscionable mistake of putting my shoes on top of my laptop. I took off my shoes. I took my laptop out of its case, but I had no idea that one should never, ever put the two together. They both went through the x-ray OK, but a security person standing on the other side was very offended. “Is this yours? You can’t put your shoes on top of your laptop! I have to put them through again separately!” In my faltering zen state, I said OK and waited for them to come out again. She continued to berate me. “You can’t put your shoes on top!” I smiled.

Once they came back through the x-ray, I was talking to the guy behind me as he had an identical ThinkPad, and since each laptop was in a plastic bucket with no other identifying items, we weren’t sure which was which. He opened his to double check he was taking the right one. The security woman swooped down and took my laptop and put it on a table that was further away. She pointed at it and looked at me. “That is your laptop? You put your shoes on top? You shouldn’t have done that.” And she walked away.

I put on my shoes and walked over to my laptop, grateful that my new zen state kept the bitchiness at bay. I can only imagine the imterrogation room I might have ended up in otherwise. The lesson is this. Be zen on the inside. But never put your shoes on top of your laptop. Ever. Some people are pretty hard core about that kind of thing.

You know how just yesterday I was talking about changing my house, that love can only go so far? Well, I think my house must read my journal. And now it’s taking its revenge.

I might have thought the faucet issue was a coincidence. We went to Home Depot for a new one, but didn’t find even one faucet that we liked. And we couldn’t think of any other faucet-like stores around so we went home to a kitchen with a faucet laying around in several pieces and ordered take out.

But now the electrical is out to get us.

P. was very unhappy with an outlet in the living room because it is positioned so low to the floor that someone cut off part of the outlet cover so it would fit around the moulding. However, we found that we can’t move it up to regular height because there’s a joist just above it that runs the length of the wall. (Yes, our house is oddly shaped. Stop talking bad about it, it will hear you!) We considered our options and decided to move the outlet to the floor, just next to the wall. Only, we’ll do that part when we replace the flooring. For now we thought we’d just take out the outlet and put the wires in a junction box to keep them safe.

I was working as always, and so P. decided he would do it. How hard could it be? Turn off the circuit, take off the outlet, put the wires in a junction box, put wire nuts on them, close the box, and turn the power back on. It didn’t take him long to come up to get me.

He plugged in a light to find out what circuit to turn off. He turned off the circuit, the light went off. He started to unscrew the wires from the outlet. The overhead lights started flickering. One of the outlet wires started sparking. Ghosts or fucked up electrical?

We did an experiment. We plugged a second light into the outlet and both lights came on. Including the one that had gone out before when he turned off the circuit. So, we turned off the circuit for the overhead lights. When we jiggled the outlet, the two lights plugged into it started to faintly glow.

So, we did what any normal person would do. We grabbed our cats and jumped in the car and never looked back!

Actually, we turned off the main breaker and with a flashlight, we took off the outlet, stuffed the wires into a junction box, capped them off with box wire nuts and electrical tape, screwed the cover on the box and stuffed the whole thing back into the wall. And taped a piece of drywall over the hole (as is the ancient custom for keeping the evil out). And breathed a sigh of relief because we had done it. We had conquered our house. We fought back against the powers of evil and darkness. We held off the curse and vanquished it with our wit and skill.

We turned the power back on and our kitchen lights no longer worked. And our dining room lights started flickering. Then, our living room lights went out. We assessed what we knew: don’t answer the telephone; don’t go exploring the darkened house alone; don’t believe the voices, they lie.

We made some margaritas and went upstairs to watch TV. Which still worked. And which looks pretty good in the dark.

DIY network should really start showing horror movies — stop showing all that fictional stuff and start airing some reality shows.

Even when you’re really in love, truly and deeply and madly in love, you don’t love everything. You see things you’d like to change, need to change, dear Lord HAVE to change. But even though breaking up sometimes crosses your mind, you don’t seriously consider it. Even with the little irritations and the compromises and the please I cannot live this way a minute longer, you’re still in love. You can’t see leaving.

I am, of course, talking about our house.

I would never be so foolish as to think I could change P. Nor would I want to. For one thing, people change and grow throughout their lives, and if that changes comes from within, it doesn’t change who they are — what makes them fundamentally them. But if the changes come from external pressure, no good can come of it. It’s not so much changing a person as taking away a part of them. Not that I’m saying you’d take their ears or something. Because, eww. But anyway, I couldn’t change P. if I tried. Consider our recent phone conversation:

Me: You should leave me voice mail messages sometimes.

Him: No. I don’t leave messages. (He refuses to leave voice mail messages, although I have no idea why. He could be trapped under a boulder with only his cell phone, and if he got my voice mail, he would hang up and think, “I’ll just try her again later.”)

Me: I know. I’m saying you should start. So, I can hear your voice.

Him: Are you trying to change me?

Me: Yes, but only just this one thing. You’re perfect in every other way.

Him: So, you’re saying if I do just this one thing, you’ll never ask me to change anything else ever for the rest of our lives?

Me: Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying!

Him: And you will change in any way I ask for the rest of our lives? OK. I’ll do it.

Me: Never mind.

So, you see, getting someone to change for your just backfires anyway.

But the house, we can change. At least we’d better be able to change it or I’ll spend my life slowly going mad until the house has won, and I’ll be immortalized on film, alongside the rest of the houses that win genre: The Shining, Amityville Horror, The Cat in the Hat, etc.

Not that we have ghosts, we have spiders. And we have sinks that leak gallons of water for no reason. And we have outlets that are just not quite at the right height. (I guess what I really mean by that last one is that I have a boyfriend who is deeply bothered by outlets that are just not quite at the right height.)

My first confession is that I’m not really in love with my washer and dryer. They’re not a blind date gone bad exactly, but maybe it was just impossible for them to live up to such high expectations. You’ll love doing laundry! They make your clothes so much cleaner! And you never have to iron! And really, they’re just a washer and dryer with the added technology to beep at me until I beat them with a hammer. We were watching this show on HGTV the other day and they were showing off this new washer and dryer with a wireless display that you can take with you everywhere in the house so you can always know the current state of your laundry. As if the beeping doesn’t do enough to shackle you to your laundry room. When I do laundry, I want to put the clothes in, go off and do something else, and then come back when I’m done doing that something else, and deal with the laundry. I don’t want to have to drop whatever it is I happen to be doing (for instance, having sex) so I can run to the clothes the second they require movement. They will not be utterly destroyed if they are damp for a few extra minutes. Or maybe my inclination to have sex rather than attend to my laundry’s every need is why my clothes aren’t as clean and fluffy and wrinkle free as I’d been promised. I think it’s worth the trade-off.

And then there’s our sink. We came home the other day to water flooding the kitchen. The faucet was off and was in fact not leaking, although it was clear it had been leaking, unless the cats had a big party while we were gone. With ice sculptures. That melted. P. thought maybe the sink wasn’t sealed very well (since after all, you could move it around), so we went to Home Depot and got some caulk. He caulked it all last night and we were very proud of our homeowner skills.

Only we got back from the gym this morning to find water pouring out of the middle of the faucet. The part that swivels. Huh. So, we turned the water off under the sink and tried taking apart the faucet only after we got it all apart, we found we couldn’t really get to the leaky part, so we googled around, and we think maybe it blew out from the water pressure and not being beaded or fastened right or something. We could, of course, be entirely wrong. But when you purchase something expensive, like a house, you want it to not leak water everywhere. That part we’re pretty sure of. So, we’re going back to Home Depot to get a new faucet. We may never have running water in our kitchen again.

We still spend every waking moment sanding our walls. Sand is everywhere. It’s like the dust bowl except without the burning desire to move to Bakersfield. We have plastic up all over the place, but dust is persistent. No wimpy plastic is going to get the better of dust.

And did I mention the fleas? And that I’m so insanely allergic to them that I am in a constant state of itchiness, covered in hives, every moment that I am home. Which makes the fact that I spend at least 12 hours a day at work lately a little easier to take. It’s respite from the relentless itching. Maybe I should mention that to the HR people so they can use it as a new recruiting slogan.

When I was seeing a counselor during the dark and stormy days, she told me that I should use my birthday to reflect over the past year. I did a pretty good job of this last year. We were up at the Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood and I sat beside the fire, watched the snow out the window, and wrote in my journal. This year, my birthday zoomed in, and before I had a chance to take a breath, it zoomed back out again. Also, I drank a lot of wine that weekend.

So, I figure now nearly a month and a half after my birthday is as good a time as any for reflection. This all came to me because I couldn’t get that Alanis Morissette song out of my head, and I realize it’s my own damn fault for making it the title of my last entry and I’m sorry, it’ll never happen again, so please, enough with the angry young white girl already! (Yes, I realize she is no longer young and angry; but we’re all judged against what we write, so she’s responsible for her own pigeonholing. Anyway.)

So, there’s this line in that song (sorry, if it won’t leave my head, it’s not leaving anyone else’s head) that goes “and what it all comes down to, is that I haven’t quite got it all figured out just yet”. Or maybe it doesn’t go exactly like that, but that’s how it’s going in my head. And that got me thinking about how lots of people in their twenties are finding their way and figuring it out and we cut them some slack when they’re dumb asses, because they don’t have it quite figured out just yet and they are trying to decide what to be when they grow up and what road they’re going to take and the trouble with all that is this.

It implies that there is something to be figured out. And that “quite yet” eventually arrives. And that there’s this particular road you choose to walk and then the rest of your life is spent traveling along it. And maybe there are bumps in the road and twists and turns, but you’ve figured it out. And you’re getting there.

And maybe there is no road.

I’m sure that when I reflect next year, I’ll have a completely different thought, but right now, I’m thinking that my thirties is about realizing that I’m never going to figure it all out because there isn’t anything to be figured out, so I should stop killing myself with trying. I can never know where the road will lead, because I’m not on a road that leads somewhere. I’m just wandering around. And the best I can do is wake up every day and decide where I’m going to go from here. And sometimes that will eventually lead me from one place to another, but just as often, I’ll end up someplace entirely different that I never imagined. And that’s just how life is. It’s not fair or reasonable or logical and there’s no secret master plan that will make it all make sense.

It’s very difficult for me to set priorities. My head is full of things I want to do, and they’re all of equal importance: Iron the clothes, write a novel, make a cheesecake that is both delicious and low fat, landscape the backyard, find a haircut I like, tile the floor. At the end of the day, I judge myself on my inability to accomplish these things equally . And I continually have to remind myself. I still have tomorrow. I still have the rest of my life. In the scheme of things, how important is it that my spices aren’t organized? If I don’t mark that off my list today, that doesn’t mean I can’t make homemade ice cream tomorrow. Life is not one long linear path based on when things happen to pop in my head.

Writing that last part there, it seems obvious. I can make homemade ice cream anytime I want. P. bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday. So, why am I reflecting on an Alanis Morissette song when I could be doing that?

When I don’t write for a while, I feel as though I’ve lost a part of myself. And it’s true. If I don’t write something, it’s gone. I can write about the same thing another time, but never in exactly the same way. I started thinking about how lots of things are like that: poems, photographs, paintings. And then I realized, all of life is like that. Which I guess is where all that carpe diem, dance like no one thinks you’re a crazy person, time is ticking crap comes from. My life has now become a sappy Hallmark greeting card.

When things are busy and I don’t have time to process my thoughts, much less write them down, I get weighed down and I panic a little, because I know I can’t keep it all until I can write it down and every day that goes by and I don’t write, the more I lose. A little bit at a time. It’s like to do lists. You write stuff on the list and you don’t have to carry it around in your head anymore. Which is great unless you’re me and you don’t look at your to do list for three weeks when everything is too late to do and then you panic and beat yourself up for being forgetful and irresponsible and you don’t stop to realize that you’re not the problem, the damn list is! The list is evil! It sucks the useful memory from your brain and puts it all somewhere that you never find it again. But possibly I’m digressing here.

The point is, well maybe I don’t have a point except that I need to forcibly wrench away some time in the day for me or the entire day goes by and I’ve been running around doing who knows what until it’s the next day and the next day and I haven’t stopped to take a breath. Or write. Or figure out where I want to go. I’m just the passenger on some Mr. Toad-style ride, which is cool until you start feeling a little sick and wish Mr. Toad would slow down already. I might be digressing again. There’s not really a toad who drives.

At least I don’t think there is. Although that might explain a lot.